Hx100, Fz150, T1i

I am trying to decide which camera to buy. My main subjects will be my grandchildren but I also like to shoot flowers and landscapes. The camera I have right now, a Canon SX100IS takes great pictures but I never get the shot I want. When I finally get my granddaughter to smile, there is so much delay, that the actual image I get may have her looking away. I'm considering a Sony HX100, a Panasonic FZ100 or FZ150, a Fuji S9500 and a Canon T1i. The Fuji and the Canon are used models that I can get a a good price. I need simplicity! I don't care about video...would be a nice bonus, but not necessary. Super zoom is also not necessary but would be great to have. I've read reviews but they do no more than confuse me. Any "real life" recommendations will be appreciated!!

I have been using HX100V for the last three weeks and I can say that it fits your bill perfectly. Results are Very Good and Zoom range is amazing and battery life is very good.

QUOTE (sophie @ Oct 30 2011, 01:21 AM)

I am trying to decide which camera to buy. My main subjects will be my grandchildren but I also like to shoot flowers and landscapes. The camera I have right now, a Canon SX100IS takes great pictures but I never get the shot I want. When I finally get my granddaughter to smile, there is so much delay, that the actual image I get may have her looking away. I'm considering a Sony HX100, a Panasonic FZ100 or FZ150, a Fuji S9500 and a Canon T1i. The Fuji and the Canon are used models that I can get a a good price. I need simplicity! I don't care about video...would be a nice bonus, but not necessary. Super zoom is also not necessary but would be great to have. I've read reviews but they do no more than confuse me. Any "real life" recommendations will be appreciated!!

I have been a fan of Lumix cameras for quite some time (having gone through the FZ35, ZS3, FZ40, GF1, GH2 and now the FZ150) and I have to say that it is really great. The FZ150, which I now have, has what Panasonic calls "Lightspeed AF". In other words, it has an extremely fast focusing time (at a fraction of a second) so you can definitely capture many stolen moments at the snap of a finger.

Like many people, I went through a phase when I thought that I should get a DSLR (or something close to it) in order to legitimately shoot good photos. During that phase, I ended up getting the Lumix GH2 - which was a great "mini-DSLR". It took awesome pictures but it cost me quite a bit in order to get all the right lenses that would enable me to get good pictures. And, it ended up weighing more than a kilo for me to bring my gear (this was actually even less than what a full-fledged DSLR would weigh). In the end, I finally admitted to myself that I'm primarily a point-and-shoot guy and all of those advanced features were not really for me.

I then started looking back when I just had the FZ35 - which was a great camera in its own right. I did a bit of research and I discovered that Lumix came out with the FZ150, which was much better than the one before it - the FZ100. I decided to give the FZ150 a try and it was great! It had all the ease of a point-and-shoot but still had the potential to satisfy the enthusiast (with its RAW shooting mode, many manual modes, flash hotshoe, external MIC capability, etc.)

Its specs are basically a 12mp 1/2.3-inch MOS sensor, 24x Optical Zoom (or 32x Intelligent Zoom), Full HD video recording, and a full tiltable 3" LCD screen, among many features. I simply love this camera!

There's a good review of the FZ100 here, which points out one weakness - shooting in low light. Although perhaps that is something that the FZ150 cures, as the previous poster noted that is better (though you might be able to get the older FZ100 quite cheap second hand).

Another interesting point the reviewer brings up is the fact that the video format the FZ records in is compatible with Panasonic Viera TVs and Blu-rays etc, so you can play directly off the memory card using those. Depending on what TV you have, that could be a factor worth bearing in mind.